Letters to the Editor

Dear Editor:

I won't pretend to know about laws, statutes or religion. I do know that if you mix a one-ounce container of blue paint and a one-ounce container of yellow paint, you get two ounces of a different colored paint and it is still paint, but won't fit in a one-ounce container. It pushes the edges of its boundaries or sometimes busts through those boundaries altogether. So, one needs a bigger container.

Two viewpoints in America should fit under "liberty" even if they oppose each other. The reality is they don't always, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't or couldn't.

The traditions you speak of must be your traditions, Marion McVey. Traditions vary across cultures and religions of which there are many in this country and world, and they are all important traditions to those who live by them. All people deserve the liberty to have those traditions and express them as freely as you do yours. There are also many different types of nontraditional families aside from alternative families of which I think you were alluding to, such as single mothers, widowed parents, divorced, stepfamilies, etc., and all deserve the right to live with no regard to the choices they made or perhaps had no choice in making. In fact, I know more nontraditional families than traditional ones. So what is a traditional family value?

There is room for all types of families and their individual values. There almost has to be room seeing that the "traditional family" you speak of is not really in the majority anymore. I am sure while much of my morality would coincide with yours, regardless of our religion and upbringing, some of mine would not. For instance, I wouldn't steal or murder in cold blood. I don't think those actions are moral. There are probably other morals we share as well. However, we might have different views on abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty and homosexuality.

What would you use to argue morality on those issues? The Bible, your religion, your tradition, your God, a penny. I have a God too. I have always probably thought of him a lot like you think of yours, but I don't think he is the same as yours by the way you talk. But I trust in him and pray to him anyway. I read the Bible and it has never fully supported me because I am female and because of my lifestyle, but I pray to him anyway. He answers my prayers too.

There is room for differences of opinion on "moral" issues. There is room for everyone. We just need to get a bigger room, because when everyone fits under the canopy of "liberty and justice for all" the boundaries of our minds have to change to accommodate all the differences we share. It is when we refuse to make room for others that our world seems to shatter and be disrupted because the walls in our minds can't hold it all in. So, if we don't adjust, we bust. We need to make laws that fit the substance of all the people, not just McVey's "traditional" view of whose "liberty" should be chosen over others, in order to make it "fit." We are all important. We can all fit.

Sam Hance

Graduate Student